Scotland’s electrotechnical campaigning trade body SELECT has recorded another year of successful awareness raising, outreach and training initiatives at its AGM.

Kevin Griffin was re-elected as president of SELECT and Kenny Duncan was re-elected as vice president at the meeting and technical update, which was held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Edinburgh in Inverkeithing.

The AGM also welcomed Darrell Matthews as the organisation’s new managing director and wished outgoing MD Newell McGuiness, who has served for 29 years, every happiness in his retirement.

Mr Griffin pointed out that the technical hot topic over the course of the year had been work on the 18th edition of BS 7671 on which many hundreds of hours have been spent to ensure amendments would be practical and would meet international standards.

He said: “For the third successive year, SELECT delivered awareness training to all local authority verifiers. This year we travelled to eight locations around Scotland delivering updates on BS 7671 and BS 5839.

“These events are an important part of maintaining our relationship with local authority building standards staff, which helps us represent members’ interests around the Certification of Construction Scheme.”

SELECT’s Toolbox Talks also had a strong year. In 2017, 12 events had a record number of attendees with more than 650 members coming to hear about updates to the Scottish Building Standards and Surge Protective devices, a presentation which now features on YouTube.

Training played another important role with a 5% increase in demand for SELECT training courses. Over the year SELECT trained 2871 delegates across 267 different courses. 2044 delegates were from member businesses and the rest from non-member organisations.

Dave Forrester, SELECT’s head of technical services, who presented on the major changes, said: “It has been another eventful, but very satisfying, year with demand on the increase yet again.”

SELECT’s 1250 member companies account for around 90% of all electrical installation work carried out in Scotland. They have a collective turnover of around £1 billion and provide employment for 15,000 people.